Ron bursts into the hallway, running down to his room with limbs flailing in a fluid motion that oddly resembles some kind of upset amoeba. "They're giving away money! Money! They're giving it away!" he chokes, unable to get the words out fast enough. Steve jumps up. Shaggy charges out of his room, half-done pulling his shirt on. "I want money," he says, interested. Heath gasps, "They're giving away free money?" Ron blazes back out with his posse in tow, still trying to spread the financial gospel. Rachel and Lizzie aren't really sure what it all means, but they follow anyway because if it can get Ron running, it must be huge.
Rounding a corner, Steve sprints gamely behind Ron, whose arms are still flapping. Shaggy's face is pointed skyward and his legs are pumping furiously. This may be the first time he's ever run. Suddenly, they screech to a halt. "This is going to change our lives," pants Ron. "It's...beautiful." Sure enough, standing before them is enough to make cash-strapped students and rectangle fetishists swoon with lust: a gigantic Guaranteed Freedom Access Card, flagging a booth giving plastic pieces of heaven to anyone with a pen, a real-sounding address, and a yen for a free t-shirt. "The real cards aren't that big," clarifies Ron, "but they're good, too."
Back in the dorm with Heath, Ron announces that he's going to employ the card for enormous financial gains. Heath prefers to stare at himself in the mirror, make popping noises, and manipulate his mouth into bizarre positions. This not only assists with the aspiring actor's diction, but helps him cope with the tense, tricky times in which a girl's tongue appears in his mouth. Ron invites him into the plan. "No, Ron, I don't want in," Heath states levelly. "Haven't you noticed I'm a thespian? I have no need for money. I live by my craft." Except Heath blunts the "p" in "thespian," so that it sounds like he's proclaiming himself a "thesbian," like he's some sort of Ellen DeGeneres actor-lesbian. They do have the same hair, I've noticed. Ron interrupts my musing to point out that online investing is as much a craft as acting is. "Online investing is for desperate fools," Heath insists. Whatever, Union Jack. As if the Queen isn't an E-Trade junkie. "Right," Ron allows. "Except for me, though." He shows Heath his monitor -- Ron is tracking Anatomical Industries' stock, ticker symbol ANAID. The company recreates human stomachs in petri dishes. "That's just wrong," Heath shakes his head. "People shouldn't do things like that." Ron is indignant. He is affronted. He is staunchly pro-stomach. "That's not wrong!" he sputters. "Every old guy with an ulcer is going to want one of those dish guts. My dish guts." He says this with the kind of fatherly pride a stomach has never before been given. I picture him raising a young stomach from his dorm room, feeding it milk and cookies and chicken soup and petting it every night while reading it soothing bedtime stories, like Even Daddy Pukes Sometimes and Timmy Tummy and the Terrifying Tapeworm. And, "dish guts" is just pretty fantastic. Heath shakes his head at Ron's excitement about getting rich "from the ailments of old men." Ron's grin brims with glee. "I hope you enjoy your little shallow, soulless existence in front of your computer," Heath patronizes. Ron nods his head and blathers, "I just made $150 right there while you were saying...something...I don't even care what, 'cause I made $150."
Shaggy slips his shiny new card into the ATM and coos, "Sweet, sweet credit card, Daddy's gonna take good care of you." Steve, standing to him, is in a state of despair. "I can't believe I got a D+ on this paper," he moans. Shaggy is sympathetic. "Maybe you should focus on the plus," he suggests. Spoken like a spin doctor. Steve is inconsolable, though, because he worked hard on that paper and thought it represented the most succulent juices of his wrung-out brain. "Maybe I can't do any better," he frets. "Maybe this is as smart as I get." Shaggy nods his assent, which does zero for Steve's frayed nerves. Leaning into his friend, Shaggy conspiratorially whispers, "Wanna see power over The System? Meet...The Wad." He whips out a pile of cash thicker than Steve's forearm. Which isn't saying much, but hey, money's thin. "It's all the power of money, but the key is, you never spend it," Shaggy says triumphantly, utterly proud of himself. Suddenly, a faux-suave student interjects, "Steven Karp, I know a guy that can hook you up." Steve is intrigued, the self-proclaimed Designated Lover within thinking that maybe, just maybe, this will end in a condom. "I know someone that will happily compose a paper for you, for a price," the guy says. Shaggy shakes his head. "I've heard of this guy. He's a townie, right?" he asks, skeptically. Sighing irritatedly, the guy replies, "Yes, he is a gentleman that resides in town." Shaggy doesn't like the sound of this, and suggests that Steven stick to his D and keep trying. "It's wrong having some weird guy do your homework for you," he argues. Steve, though, still seems interested, and accepts the number for the man, who conveniently takes credit cards.
At a nondescript house off-campus, a middle-aged schlub called Dave (Will Ferrell) rifles through crates and announces that the fee is $75 for an original work, or fifty bucks for a paper from the pile. Steve's paper is about Madame Bovary. "Is that, uh, Horowitz?" Dave asks, trying to sound with-it. "Still got that wandering eye?" Steve nods and laughs politely. "Yeah, yeah," Dave grins. "Yeah, he'll use that. He'll use that." Steve looks confused. They tell Dave the paper is due by the day at noon; the man has no idea what time it is, possibly because draperies and decorations hang in front of every available window. Shaggy's expression is one of dubious amusement, like he's always refreshed to meet people whose idiosyncrasies are stranger than his own. Steve whips out the credit card and hands it to Dave with Yep-I'm-A-Man bravado. "Yeah, virgin plastic, that's nice, that's a good feeling," Dave's head bobs. Steve jokes, "Don't rob me!" Dave laughs and says, "Yeah! I could, actually." Steve's grin falters. Shaggy smirks. Dave asks what Steve's major is, and Shaggy answers for his friend: "He's undeclared," he says, snorting to convey that he thinks Steve's cuckoo and not a little screwed. Dave reassuringly notes that he, too, came in undeclared and yet turned out all right. Steve reacts with the face of a man who will run right out and sign up for Basket Weaving, with a minor in Proctology, if it can save him from such a fate.
The day in class, the students file past Professor Horowitz's desk and drop papers atop it. "I mean, this was, like, a difficult paper to write," babbles Steve. "It took me a long time, because Madame Bovary is a difficult book, with tons of...layers, and themes...." Steve's mouth is his shovel, and it has a tireless capacity for digging. Shaggy whispers that Steve is being far too obvious about his discomfort, so Steve takes another stab at nonchalance by handing in his paper and brightly thanking Horowitz. Both the man's eyes are so lazy, they can't be bothered to flicker in Steve's direction.
Frosh Pit. Ron is sitting at his computer, puffing away on a cigar and crowing about his intelligence and investing savvy. "I've already made $2,648," he brags to Heath, who leans in the doorframe and raises a disbelieving eyebrow at Ron. "You're a lying bastard," Heath accuses him. "Oh, check for yourself, there, Limey," retorts Ron. "And I did it all in my boxers." Heath leans over Ron's shoulder and peers admiringly at the computer screen. Ron excitedly dreams up ways to spend his windfall. "I could buy a decent used car right now," he enthuses. "Or, an amazingly thorough prostitute." Aren't those two things basically the same? Heath is enthralled by the stock ticker. "And it just keeps going up like that?" he marvels. Ron nods. "Yeah, it just keeps going up." We watch it pass twenty bucks a share and keep climbing. "I want to share this with you -- you're my friend," Ron tells Heath. "At least until I meet a gold-digger."
Jubilant, Steve struts through the hallway with Shaggy, waving his paper and loving the feel of college-grade linoleum under his feet. "It's so awesome," he crows. "He said I'd get an A, and I did!" Shaggy, the voice of reason, suggests that Dave was, in fact, the one who earned the A grade, but Steve is busy rhapsodizing about his sudden trajectory straight toward the Dean's List. He's glowing. "Do you understand, I've never gotten good grades?" Steve points out. "Which is, of course, why I came to this school." Shaggy jerks up his head. "This is a bad school?" he asks. Steve's double-take couldn't scream "duh" any louder if his eyes were bullhorns. Trying desperately to rationalize his cheating, Steve decides that he can't stop farming out his papers, because now the professor views him as an A student. "Like, could you go back to being a guy without a wad?" he asks Shaggy, who smiles understandingly and whips out a wad thrice the thickness of Steve's neck. "You mean, Señor Wad?" he winks. "It's really only $500 in American currency, but now it's 77,600 Mexican pesos. See how grande it is?" Steve heartily agrees. Shaggy packs a mean, mean wad. That wad is building up like no other I've seen. Finished with their conversation, the guys turn their heads and peer into the Frosh Pit...
In the Frosh Pit, Heath and Ron have decided to spend the day freaking out instead of attending class, or even leaving the room. While he packs up the hot flat-screen monitor, Ron wheedles that he just needs a bit of money to play with, so he can buy while the stock is low and then win back the money he lost. "No, Ron, I'm through with this," seethes Heath. "Money is the devil!" Heath's spine is made of rubber, though, so we know he'll bend eventually. Ron rudely awakens him by explaining that the credit debt will plague them forever unless they make payments promptly. "We won't even be able to get a Discover card!" Ron spits. Guess Discover is not a proud sponsor of this show. Heath mourns the loss of leather suits from his life. "If you want to fix this, go get me some money," breathes Ron. Heath sneers that he'd sure like to know how that's going to happen.
Whoosh. "Granny, it's [Heath]," murmurs Heath lovingly, while gentle and tender music-box-like tunes punctuate the swift cut. "Granny, it was my birthday last week and I still didn't receive my birthday check." Here, my grandmother would hang up and go spend my birthday money on a large cheesecake, eat the whole thing, and send me the empty box. But Heath's granny is a sucker -- she cries. "Oh, no, don't cry, Granny," Heath sweetly coos, as Ron paces frenetically in the background and barks out orders. "I know you forget sometimes. It's okay. There's always year," Heath says comfortingly. Ron grimaces, pained, and screams, "What are we gonna do?" Heath tenses and hisses, "Dude, I will punch you in the eye!" Ron throws up his hands and groans, "She's worth more to us dead." Heath takes off after him, waving a brandished fist of justice aching to be employed.
Ye Olde Cheating Shoppe. Outside, Lizzie moans that perhaps her bad grade was just punishment for cheating. "Yeah," Rachel agrees. "I can stop whenever I want to. This is just recreation." Inside, Dave is glued to a PlayStation controller. "This move, I call Farewell My Concubine," he says. "I pause, and then I bludgeon. That's what I do! All right!" A knock on the door reveals that he is, in fact, alone and explaining this to no one but the little green men in his head and the Santa in his kitchen. He warmly invites Steve inside to have a pumpkin muffin, but does it without looking away from the television. "Hey, did we rock the Karamazov brothers, or what?" he grins. Uncomfortably, the kids reveal they all got Ds on their papers -- although Lizzie brightly notes she received a C. "Whatever," Rachel dismisses her. "The point is, we paid you $75! We should be getting at least Bs! That's what you promise!" I just noticed Dave has a Macintosh Plus on his coffee table, a primitive Mac that cost $2,000 when my sister started college -- in 1987. Now he could barter it for beef jerky. Dave wants to see his lousy papers. "Redundant, illogical, shallow. God! Horowitz is so tough! He's so tough, he's haunting me," Dave whispers, massaging his cheek. Defiant, he decides, "We're going to fight this. We're going to fight this all the way to the administration." Rachel interrupts that she read the paper he scripted on Jackson Pollock, and it was absolutely terrible. Dave admits he was about to reach level twenty-four on the game, which never happens, so he blew off the papers and made sweet love to his PlayStation controller. I think that, every year, the Sony vs Nintendo battle for console supremacy singlehandedly lowers the national GPA by at least one point. Lizzie demands a refund, but Dave informs her that it's been invested in his gaming system. Just as their protests get louder, Dave agrees to write one paper each free of charge. Lizzie decides to refuse, but weak, weak Rachel muses, "Know what, though, I do have a paper due..." Dave speeds, "Just feed me the rock, and I will put it through the hoop, swoosh, count it, go to the locker room, take a shower. Thumbs up, huh? Can I see it across the board? Thumbs up? Ahh!" Reluctantly, the trio half-heartedly raises some thumbs and resists the urge to shove them somewhere indecent on Dave's body.
Steve stares at his computer in complete fatigue. Behind him, Lizzie proudly pats his shoulder as he brags, "I did it all by myself!" And his machine promptly crashes with one of those made-for-TV error messages with a giant bomb and a frowning emoticon. Wish my laptop would be that polite about it. Lizzie's back pat becomes a pity pat. Crushed, Steve drops his head to the table and bangs it into oblivion.
Over the credits, we see that Shaggy is unable to sleep because Ron is berating the dish-guts stock again. It's down to less than three bucks a share. When he realizes his pal is awake, Ron lies that he's just downloading a ton of internet porn, and Shaggy contentedly goes back to sleep. "Up, up, up!" Ron keeps grunting. Shaggy lifts his head. "You want my password?"